


Nothing Twice

by tigress



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Childhood Memories, Gen, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 14:14:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5668927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigress/pseuds/tigress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe is eight months old and present in his parents’ life, for the most part, in the form of holographic transmissions from Yavin 4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Twice

Shara Bey doesn’t tell her son about the war.

Poe is eight months old and present in his parents’ life, for the most part, in the form of holographic transmissions from Yavin 4: a fussy, distracted child huddled in his grandfather’s arms, rarely aware that there is someone else on the other side, waving at him, talking, trying to hold his attention for more than a few seconds.

Shara’s father assures them that there’s nothing to worry about. Poe is growing up quickly. He’s clever, curious, affectionate. Well cared for. Socialized. Shara’s father has been reading up on that.

It’s just, he tells her, that he’s too little to understand how holographic transmissions work.

Her father means it kindly, but Shara feels the sting of it like a poisoned needle. It eats at her, has been for a long time now: she doesn’t know what to do. They are soldiers, she and Kes, and there’s a war. But they’re parents too, and it turns out these things don’t intersect particularly well.

Two months later, Shara returns from an uneventful recon flight to find Kes waiting on the landing strip, his normal composure splitting into a bright grin when he picks her up and all but twirls her around. ‘I’ve got something to show you,’ he says.

Back in their quarters: a recording of Poe taking a few tentative steps and stumbling into his grandfather’s open arms, laughing.

‘This was yesterday,’ Kes says, smiling warmly at the flickering image. He looks happier than she’s seen him in years. Giddy. Shara knows that she should feel the same, but her joy is choked by the knot of guilt in the pit of her stomach.

Yesterday. Her son, taking his first steps while she was surveilling a long-abandoned mining colony for imperial activity, on an anonymous tip.

In the morning Shara submits a formal request to be permanently discharged. It goes through after a few days and causes no small amount of consternation, quickly tempered by an awkward sort of politeness. We understand, of course. Shara cannot look any of them in the eye. We are grateful for your service. She gets a modest compensation and keeps her A-wing, stripped of Republic insignia.

On the day Shara leaves, Leia is waiting for her outside the hangars. She hugs Shara. Has to stand on tiptoes to do it, the growing swell of her belly between them.

This is not how it happens.

\----------

Shara Bey tells her son about the war.

Poe grows up in a house of white stone. His mother’s stories would seem like something out of a fairy tale, if not for the fact that he has met most of the heroes that populate them: a near-constant procession of pilots and old war comrades who ruffle Poe’s hair, pick him up and toss him in the air, bring him toys.

He’s four and stumbling into his mother’s arms, where she’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, sorting through a mismatched collection of little model ships. 

He’s six and flying for the first time, strapped down safely in his mother’s lap, wide-eyed and nearly breathless.

He’s nine and making his first solo flight; climbing until the horizon curves and he’s very nearly in orbit.

He’s thirteen and has just been admitted into the Academy early enough to get a lot of people’s attention.

He’s seventeen and flying on his mother’s wing in Rapier Squadron.

This is not how it happens.

\----------

Shara Bey tells her son: People were hurting. People were suffering. Your father and I couldn’t sit and do nothing.

It’s as much a lesson as it is an apology, but Poe doesn’t untangle the two until later. They don’t see much of eachother now, though he tries to be home for a week or two every summer.

Leia finds him when he’s a little too wild, a little too fond of adrenaline, entirely ready to believe in something.

‘I might have a job for you,’ she tells him.

This is almost true.

\----------

It happens like this:

‘I can fly anything.’


End file.
